All the Things We Never Knew

by Liara Tamani

  “Rex is playing at our school tonight, and I’ve decided that you’re coming.”

  I let out a sigh. “You seriously came all the way home for that? What’s wrong with you?” I yell. “You know I can’t go anywhere.”

  “What’s wrong with me? Really? I don’t get you, Carli,” he says, face going bright red like he’s about to explode from exasperation. “You know . . . you’re always worried about what this random thing means and what that completely arbitrary thing means. But when something simple is staring you right in the face, it’s like you don’t see it. I should be at my game, right now, but I’m standing here ready to take you to see Rex. And you’re really telling me no?”

  I want to get defensive, but the bright sun swinging inside my chest won’t let me. I can’t believe I’ve never considered going to the game. Maybe because my stomach hurts like hell. Or because the doctor ordered me to stay home until Wednesday. Or because a teacher or coach or any of my teammates could spot me. But they’re even smaller than the smallest specks of dust—not even about to stop me from seeing Rex.

  REX

  Carli. Is. In. The. Building. Can you believe it? I mean, I dreamed of her coming, but there’s no way I thought she’d be here this soon after surgery.

  I’m sitting high up in the stands, a couple rows above my team. The JV game is about to start. Carli’s walking along the sidelines with Cole, who’s suited up for the game. A few of his teammates, standing in a huddle around their coach, look back at him like, What the fuck? But he doesn’t pay them any mind. His attention is on Carli, his arm around her for support. And judging by how slow they’re moving, she needs every bit of it.

  I stand up, ready to run to her and relieve him so he can get on the court.

  But the first horn on the game clock sounds, and I sit back down.

  Coach is sitting in the bleachers above me, so he can keep a good eye on the team. He likes us to stay put during the JV games, stay focused. I mean, we can run to the bathroom or go get a bag of chips from the vending machines if we want, but if he catches anybody wandering around trying to holla at girls, he benches them for the game.

  But man, this feeling inside me right now has me thinking crazy. Has me thinking this moment is bigger than a game on the bench. Has my whole body feeling like it’s about to explode into some rainbows and shit. I’m telling you, another minute of trying to contain it, and people are gonna be picking me up as Lucky Charms scattered around the gym.

  The second horn sounds. Game time. Man, forget this. I run down the bleachers and sidelines until I’m standing in front of Carli, looking straight into her brown eyes, taking in their surprise, their delight.

  I wrap my arm around her other side. “I got her,” I tell Cole, and he flashes me a giant smile before letting go.

  CARLI

  Rex’s hand is around my hip and I’m floating. Dreaming. I must be dreaming. Sleepwalking. I must be about to fall flat on my face. But the strength of Rex’s hand holding me up, the light grip of his fingers pushing into my skin, the tingles moving up and down my left side and through my body, tells me I’m not. Tells me this is real, just like I thought.

  “Hi,” he says, in a low voice, his smiling eyes wandering across my face.

  “Hi,” I say in return, and let my eyes travel, too. From the tight, spiraling curls in his high-top . . . to his thick brows . . . to his hooded eyes . . . to the mole on the right side of his nose . . . to his big, curvy lips. I can’t help but pause there for a bit. They look so soft.

  “Is here good?” he asks, and points to the opening on the first row we’re standing in front of.

  “Perfect,” I say, thinking about how I’m going to get my butt all the way down to the wooden bench without ripping my stomach open. He must read my mind because as we turn to sit down, he pulls my body closer to his until he’s taken almost all of my weight and our bodies are sitting down as one.

  After we sit down, we hold hands, interlocking our fingers. It’s automatic. Like we’ve done it a million times.

  My hand is on top—his long, brown fingers reaching over my knuckles showing his short, shiny nails. Not just-got-them-buffed shiny, more like really clean shiny.

  Looking over my left shoulder, I take in more of him—the way his strong neck eases down into his collarbones, the way his chest bulges underneath his dark green uniform, the way he smells like a pine forest. It’s making me want to lean in, put my nose right up to the crook of his neck, and take a sniff. Or maybe even kiss his chin or bite his cheek or eat him up or have him eat me up or bury myself forever inside his earthy-sweet-smelling uniform. Clearly, I’m losing my mind being this close to him.

  REX

  My nervousness makes me start bursting with words, spitting them out right and left. “It’s crazy you’re here. Man, that surgery had to be no joke. How are you feeling? I can’t believe you’re actually here . . . sitting next to me. Sorry, you’ll have to excuse me . . . it’s just that I’ve been dreaming . . . nah . . . never mind. You healing okay, though? Cole said you’ve been feeling better every day.” This is not me. This is not how I talk. It’s like some whack, diarrhea-of-the-mouth dude has invaded my body and won’t shut up.

  “Cole, my brother?” Carli asks, sparse eyebrows scrunched together.

  Damn, I just told on myself, didn’t I? Now how am I supposed to explain knowing her brother’s name? I guess I could make up a different Cole. But what other Cole would know how she’s been? Even if I could get my mouth to slow down and be cool long enough to formulate a lie, that one wouldn’t even make sense.

  She lets go of my hand and grabs a round, gold pendant hanging from her necklace. She slides it back and forth slowly along her chain, eyeing me curiously.

  Sweat rolls from under my arm, down my side, and I unzip the jacket to my warm-ups. “Yeah, your brother,” I say, pushing the words past the knot at the back of my throat screaming, Don’t mess this up!

  “You know him?” she says, looking confused—pale, bare lips clasped tight, every freckle sprinkled on and around her nose giving me the eye.

  “No, I started following him on IG after you passed out a few weeks ago. Wait, it wasn’t a few weeks. Feels like it, though. Feels like forever. When was it, again?”

  “Saturday before last,” she says, studying my face.

  “Saturday before last, yeah . . . after you passed out,” I repeat like a bumbling fool and look down, feeling my face go long and soft. If Carli’s still reading me, she can definitely see how scared I am.

  “So, you’re basically telling me you’ve been stalking me on my brother’s Instagram?”

  Shit. I will every muscle in my face to go stiff. Now she probably thinks I’m pissed, but it’s better than her seeing how many hours I’ve spent staring at her face on the Internet. I can’t have her thinking I’m some type of weirdo. I can’t lose her like this. I swear I can’t. Just thinking about it is making my throat swell up, making my insides turn black.

  My face accidentally slips into softness again, and I can feel her eyes—a warm glow—looking around inside of me.

  CARLI

  Everything in me wants to kiss him. Not because his lips look about as delicious as delicious gets (and they do!), but because everything I’ve been feeling for him, I can see he’s been feeling for me, too.

  Plus, his nervousness is about the cutest, most kissable thing in the world. He’d better be glad I’m not selfish. If I was, I wouldn’t even think about putting him at ease. “Kidding . . . kidding. You wanted to check on me?” I say, letting go of my necklace. “That’s sweet.”

  He lets out a long sigh. “Yeah, I wanted to make sure you were okay,” he says, looking up, his wide mouth cracking a small smile. But the rest of his face is still long, like it hasn’t gotten over me playing around.

  Dang, now I feel bad. I hope I didn’t hurt him. “Trust me, if you had anything besides highlight clips on your Instagram, I would’ve been stalking you, too.”

&nbs
p; His face brightens way up. “Oh, you looked?”

  A strange lightness rushes to the center of my forehead. I can’t ever remember making a boy so happy. It feels so reassuring, so good. “Of course. Had to do my background research.”

  “Is that right?” he says, grinning, and tilts his head to the side. His nose is crooked, like maybe it’s been broken a few times. I wish I could kiss that, too.

  “Not that it gave up any goods on you. You don’t have any real pics on there. No friends. No ex-girls. Nothing but basketball stuff. And nobody has time to be sitting around watching you dunk and drain threes all day,” I say.

  He smiles big, like I’m making his day.

  But I’m greedy. I want to make his year, his life. So I gently reach for the menu in my back pocket. The one I wrote the fact about kisses on before I even knew how he felt about me. The one I carried around in my back pocket for over a week—steady stream of hope coming from my right butt cheek. Rex is about to flip when he sees it. But it’s not there. “Damn,” I mumble, remembering the menu is with Jordan and she’s not coming until the end of Rex’s game.

  “Oh, is it your stomach?” Rex asks, thick eyebrows raised in concern.

  “No, I’m okay.”

  “What is it then?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You can tell me.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll tell you later.”

  “Why can’t you tell me now?” he says.

  I’m a little surprised by his persistence, but it feels kinda nice. Like we’ve skipped right over the beginning phase of our relationship, when people hold back trying to say and do all the right things. Like we’re already in this thing deep. “Because,” I say.

  “Because what?”

  “Because it’ll be better later,” I explain. For the full effect, I want to give him the menu in person. Telling him about it wouldn’t be the same.

  “I hate when people do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “Tell you there’s a secret without telling you the secret.”

  “Secret? There is no secret,” I say, now wondering if we’re having our first argument.

  “Yeah, you just told me there was something to tell and simultaneously told me you can’t tell me what it is.”

  “No, I said damn, and then you got nosy.”

  “Well, if you weren’t going to tell me, why not keep the damn to yourself?”

  I could be cool and say, It slipped out, but I decide to push back and ask, “Why you gettin’ mad?” He actually sounds more worked up than mad, but the question itself usually makes people mad, and I’m kind of curious what he’d be like mad.

  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to start something for the sake of starting something, but he’s already taken it this far. And if he’s the type who grits his teeth or clenches his fists over stupid shit, the type I could see yelling and name-calling and trying to humiliate, the type who makes my insides either want to curl up into a tight ball or grow sharp teeth, I need to know now. Because no matter what the signs say or how many fuchsia flowers he has blooming in my chest, I’m not even about to deal with that.

  But his face grows long and soft before he lowers his head again. When he got like this earlier, I thought it was nerves. But now I see it’s something else . . . something deeper that hurts. And he’s sitting up here showing it to me in a way no other boy has before.

  The pain inside me peeks its head out, eyeing a friend. And now it’s like his hurt and my pain are hiding under the bleachers together, holding hands.

  REX

  I swear I hate myself. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to,” I say, and look up. Her pale face has blurred. A thin layer of tears coats my eyes. Lots of blinks, really fast, and it’s better. But what does it matter? She’s not gonna want me. She’s already seen how messed up I am.

  “Hey, it’s okay,” she says, and interlaces her long, soft fingers with mine.

  “No, it’s not!” I say, harder than I want to. What the hell is wrong with me? Oh, yeah, this is the way to show Carli how I feel about her. I swear I’m so stupid. This is exactly why I usually keep my mouth shut.

  She looks down at her high-top burgundy Nike Blazers, but doesn’t take her hand away from mine.

  I slowly slide my thumb back and forth over hers, gently squeeze her hand, and rub my thumb back and forth again, hoping my hand will speak for me.

  She briefly looks up at me but looks back down. My hand is not gonna cut it.

  “Sorry, I’m not usually like this,” I start to explain, but I stop because my eyes are glazing over again. What the hell? I swear it’s like everything inside of me, everything I usually try to keep on lock, has up and decided it wants to come out and lay bare at Carli’s feet. But can it hold up a second?

  She looks back at my thumb, sliding back and forth over hers.

  “I’m usually quiet,” I start again. “But I don’t know what’s happening to me. It’s like I don’t know what to do with everything I’m feeling right now . . . where to put it all. And it’s coming out in weird ways.”

  Her eyes meet mine, then start wandering around my face.

  “Not to say, I don’t get hype. I mean, when it comes to basketball, I’m like a different person. Or if somebody steps to me, now that’s a whole different story. I mean, I let a lot of shit slide, but some shit—” Damn, Rex. Go ahead and curse up a storm, why don’t you.

  Her eyes return to mine, like she’s waiting for what else I have to say.

  “I’m just finding it really hard to act normal around you.”

  She bites the inside corner of her bottom lip, like she’s thinking, but she doesn’t say anything.

  “But in a way, talking like this is making me feel more normal than I’ve ever felt,” I continue, words pushing up and out of me like, we got this. I sure hope they know what they’re doing. “It’s weird being quiet all the time. Keeping everything inside. It’s like nobody ever really gets to know me. I’m not gon’ lie, letting it all out feels weird, too. So weird. Man, I feel crazy-exposed. But in a way, it feels good. I want you to know me, Carli. Like, straight up. And I’m really sorry for things coming out wrong earlier. It’s just that this saying-how-I-feel thing is new to me. So new. Like, you don’t even understand.”

  “I can’t even imagine you being quiet,” she says, her eyes searching me again.

  “I know. It’s weird,” I say, happy she’s not done with me yet.

  “I see you like the word weird.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You just said it, like, five times.”

  “Did I?”

  “Yeah, back in the day-day-day it used to mean destiny, you know?”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, it used to be spelled with a y, like w-y-r-d, but it got all messed up when Shakespeare— Wait, are you sure you want to hear about this?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Don’t say yeah just to be saying yeah. Because I don’t want to be sitting up here wasting all my breath if you’re really not that interested,” she says, and reaches into the right pocket of her jean jacket with her free hand.

  “I’m one hundred percent interested,” I assure her. How could I not be? She’s trying to teach me something I don’t know.

  She lets go of my hand. “Well, there were these three Weird Sisters, right,” she explains, opening what looks like a tiny box of movie popcorn. She taps the box against her palm and three light-yellow jelly beans roll out. “Want some?”

  “No, thanks,” I say. I’m more of a chocolate person, but mostly I want her to get back to the story.

  She pops the jelly beans into her mouth, closes the box, and puts it back in her pocket. “Wait, I guess for all of this to make sense, we have to take it back to Greek mythology. Okay, there were these three weaving goddesses called the Fates, right.”

  I nod.

  “I forget their names, but one spun the thread of human fate, one gave it out, and one cut the thread
, basically deciding when people died. Talk about girl power. Doesn’t get more powerful than deciding people’s destinies. Even their daddy Zeus couldn’t tell them what to do,” she says, smacking and then swallows.

  “Anyway, the three sisters had that staying power, too. They kept going strong through Roman mythology, with name changes here and there, and then made it all the way to Holinshed’s Chronicles as the Weird Sisters. Holinshed was ones of the guys in charge of writing this book about the UK’s history back in the sixteenth century. Apparently Shakespeare, like a lot of writers of his day, was really into the Chronicles and used it a lot in his plays.”

  She pauses, shifts her bottom jaw to the right, and slides her tongue back and forth under her cheek. Must be some jelly bean stuck to her teeth. Don’t ask me why but seeing her trying to get it out is making her look cuter than ever.

  “Got it?” I ask, smiling.

  “Yeah,” she says, and looks down for a second, like she’s embarrassed.

  “Continue . . . continue.”

  “Okay, so where was I?”

  “Holinshed’s Chronicles. Shakespeare liked using it for his plays.”

  “That’s right,” she says, tilting her head back and to the side.

  “Don’t act surprised. I told you I was interested.”

  “All right, then,” she says, smiling. “So, when Holinshed and his people wrote about the Weird Sisters, they described them as these beautiful nymphs and fairies, right? As these goddesses of destiny. But when Shakespeare wrote about the three sisters—well, remember the Weird Sisters in Macbeth?”

  “No,” I answer, feeling stupid. We just read that play in English last year, but I have no idea. And I thought I was smart. I mean, your boy has gotten straight As since the first grade. But Carli’s more than good-grades smart. She’s that nonrequired-reading kind of smart.

  “No? Okay, well, they were these strange-looking witches with beards who foretold Macbeth was gonna murder that dude Duncan. Anyway, Shakespeare knew exactly what he was doing by making the sisters witches. At the time people were losing their minds over witchcraft. Blaming it for everything bad. So by turning the Weird Sisters into these strange witches, Shakespeare gave his play that extra hype. Got everybody all scared and fascinated and whatnot. And basically changed the word weird forever.”